Anderson Cooper dropped a bombshell on the moms of America today, by publicly coming out as a gay man in an email published with his permission on The Daily Beast.

"The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud."

In the Beast post, columnist Andrew Sullivan explains that he recently reached out to long-time friend Cooper (for what he tactfully described as "reasons that are probably obvious to most") for feedback on last week's Entertainment Weekly story "The New Art of Coming Out: How Gay Stars Are Now Carefully—and Surprisingly—Going Public About Their Private Lives."

Cooper responded with a super long, somber email all about himself — the kind of email we all spend hours crafting any time a friend forwards us a link with the body text "did u read this cool story lol."

You can read the missive in its entirety at the Daily Beast. The basic gist of Cooper's letter is that he was never uncomfortable being a gay man, but found that remaining an (obviously gay) enigmatic silver shadow made him a more effective journalist:

"I have found that sometimes the less an interview subject knows about me, the better I can safely and effectively do my job as a journalist."''

Now everyone spend the rest of your day re-watching old episodes of The Mole and looking for the signs of Anderson Cooper's homosexuality you could have missed.